“I’ve killed people with bow and arrows before,” Todtsteltzer informed him. There was an odd leer in his voice, something that sent shivers down Reginald’s spine. The more he had to do with the assassin, the less he liked him. He was an unnatural creation, a kind of magician human that should have been exterminated many years ago. Reginald would sooner have spent time with a bloodthirsty werewolf. “The thrill was never there.”
“Fire,” the Prince commanded. A moment later, a dozen archers fired as one.
***
Hind had been producing wards as fast as she could, building them in her mind and shaping them to cover the entire party. A Court Wizard or Sorcerer might have felt that his duty was to cover his own master and to hell with everyone else, but Hind had been a Freelance Mage, trained and prepared to help everyone from the highest to the lowest. The swarm of arrows dashed themselves against her wards and shattered, leaving splinters of wood drifting through the air and falling to the ground. She looked back, bringing up the rear as Bran led them further into hidden paths, and swallowed a swear word. Branet didn't need to hear her new role model swear. A second volley of arrows smashed against her wards and she swallowed a second curse. She had expected to be targeted – after all, she was the one producing the wards – but they’d also targeted Branet. The child would have been riddled with arrows if Hind had allowed them through the wards.
“Go forward,” she ordered Branet, pushing as much authority into her voice as she could. The mountain tracks weren't designed to allow rapid movement, yet there was no choice. If the army came closer, their magic-users – and she knew that there were several down below them – would be able to trap them and hold them until the army caught up. The magical field was twisting around them, yet the sorcerers seemed to be having problems holding the spell together. Slipping and sliding their way up the mountain was playing merry hell with their concentration.
A sudden gust of wind blew up and Hind nearly lost her footing, something that would have sent her tumbling down towards the army with a complete loss of dignity. She braced herself against the wind, trying hard to keep up with Eric and Bran, putting as much of her concentration into the wards as she could. Bran was saying something about a safe space higher up the trail, but Hind could tell that it wasn't going to be safe. If the sorcerers below had time to get their act together, the chase was going to end rapidly and completely. She looked up towards the dragon, still perched on the rocky peak, but the creature wasn't even looking towards her. She'd heard stories of people who had made bargains with dragons and while some of them had been cautionary tales, others had been quite encouraging. It hardly mattered. They had no way of attracting the dragon’s attention. If it didn't decide to fly over and investigate, there was nothing they could do to ask – or beg – it for help.
She braced herself as the magical field twisted again, tearing away at her wards. Green fire burst into existence over them, hissing and cracking as it tried to burn through her defences, but it faded away before it could inflict any serious harm. She looked up at Eric’s face, illuminated by the light, and wondered if it was the end before the sorcerer who’d mounted the attack lost concentration and the magic faded away. They were working together, if not particularly well, something that bothered her more than she cared to admit. She was a Master Magician, yet if three or four weaker magicians worked together, they could beat her down by sheer force. How many magicians or sorcerers had Herod recruited? No one had managed to build a magician army that had lasted for long, but if he had a few hundred reasonably powerful sorcerers, he might be able to put together a challenge to the Academy’s supremacy, even without necromancy.
Another spell, a single fireball, burst off her wards and flickered out of existence, followed by a dozen more, including a handful of darker and more complex spells. From the outside, it had to look as if her wards were holding up to everything without even being scratched, but she knew better. Every spell that struck her wards weakened them; every successive spell weakened them further before she had a chance to weave the wards back together. The bastards were spreading out, throwing their spells towards all of the party, not just her. Holding the wards together was turning into a nightmare.
“Eric,” she said, as she staggered under another attack. This one had been a bad one, a spitting ball of magic that had eaten away at her wards without dispelling, at least until she’d managed to banish it back to nothingness. Hind was fairly sure she knew what spell they’d used, but it was oddly powerful and dangerous for a spell that normally just illuminated the presence of free-floating magic. “Eric, I can't hold this much longer.”
She winced as something struck her, leaking through the wards and sending odd pulses of magic towards Bran. Someone down there had realised that he was the one in charge and was trying to kill or paralyse him. Hind blocked them with an effort, but it cost her more power and new cracks appeared in the wards, cracks that an enemy could take advantage of. A green ball of light raced towards Eric, evil purpose written in its sheer malevolent complexity, and he drew Morningstar and battered it away. Another crack appeared in her wards and she felt blood dripping from her nose. The ground was suddenly starting to seem very attractive...
And then she heard the rumbling from high above.
***
Reginald watched, disdainfully, as Hind’s wards weakened under a constant bombardment from his sorcerers. She was fighting gamely, but as long as she couldn't fire back, there was no hope at all of her escaping. He sensed the disapproval of the Great Sword even as he found himself admiring her defiance and determination, even though it was useless. There was nothing of honour in the chase, no glory to the victory, merely a squalid little victory to complete his master’s grip on the Golden Throne.
“We have her,” the Prince proclaimed, as the wards began to collapse. There was an almost sickening eagerness in his tone, a sign that he wouldn't be satisfied with just five dead bodies. He was going to be disappointed, Reginald knew; he’d issued orders that the bombardment was to continue until all five of the fugitives were dead, rather than merely paralysed. The Prince could go piss up a rope for all Reginald cared about his opinion. “We...”
He looked up as a rumbling echoed over the mountainside. Reginald followed his gaze, at first disbelieving, as a ledge of snow broke loose from an overhang high overhead and started to fall down the mountainside. It took him a moment to realise that the fall was turning into an avalanche and that he and his army was right in its path. The fugitives were going to be smashed first, but somehow that was no consolation when they were going to be smashed immediately afterwards. There was no hope of escape. They were too far from any protection to take cover in time.
“Shield us, now,” he barked at the sorcerers, reaching out for their magic. They’d laid wards over the army, of course, just in case Hind had had time to throw a few spells back at them; now, working together in frantic haste, they strengthened the wards and drew them tight. A number of common soldiers would be left outside the wards, but they would have to take their chances. “Focus!”
He braced himself as the snow streamed closer, coming right at them.
***
Just for a moment, Hind’s eyes refused to accept what they were seeing. A massive avalanche was coming right at them, threatening to bury them all under a mountain of snow. She didn't know if it had been triggered by the magic, or if the forces chasing them had intended to bury them, or if one of Bran’s...associates had decided to set off the snowfall; it hardly mattered. She pulled at her magic, pushing every last tiny fraction of her power into the wards, and drew them tight. A moment later, the snow struck her wards. She held, she held...and then her head started to spin and the wards collapsed. Something struck the side of her head and she crashed down into blackness....
The last thing she heard, or thought she heard, was Eric shouting her name.
***
Reginald stared as the snow came closer, swallowing up the fugitives be
fore it slammed right into his protective wards. It occurred to him, a second too late, that they’d designed the wards badly. Instead of channelling the snow around them, they’d forced it into crashing right into the wards, building up the pressure rapidly. Reginald felt blood trickling from his nose as he struggled to hold the wards together, before the entire warded area was picked up and pushed along by the might of the snow. He felt the wards quiver as sorcerers were knocked down by the sudden movement, or crushed under falling soldiers and their weapons, and fought to keep pouring magic into them, somehow holding it together. Their tiny shielded area creaked alarmingly, yet somehow it held as they were shoved back down the mountainside, down the path that had taken them so long to climb up.
The mountains do not want us here, he thought, somehow. He wasn't sure if it was his own thought, or something the Sword had whispered into his head. The pain in his head was growing stronger, yet he didn't dare let go of the wards. They were still falling down the mountainside and if he let go, they would all die. He heard the Prince cry out in agony as something struck him and then the world lurched and went dark.
He awoke slowly to discover that Colonel Garyad was splashing icy cold water on his skin. Reginald tried to push him away, only to discover that he had almost no strength at all left in his body. It was all he could do to clasp his hand around the Great Sword and draw on its power, yet it was clear that he needed more than just a few hours sleep. His headache refused to fade and, when he reached up to touch his nose, he felt crusted blood covering his face.
“Sir,” the Colonel said. He sounded nervous, even though Reginald couldn't understand why he would be worried about anything. They’d just fallen down the mountainside and survived. “You need to take a look at this.”
One of the soldiers helped Reginald to his feet, allowing him to lean on him as he staggered over to where the Colonel was standing. Prince Tendric lay there, his neck at an unnatural angle. Reginald didn't need magic or even basic medical skills to know that the Prince was dead. His rule over Garstang had lasted less than a week.
“Oh,” he said, finally. Herod wasn't going to be happy, but not even necromancy could bring the dead back to life. His master might punish him for failure, yet with the pain in his head, it was hard to care. He needed to sleep for a week in the deepest healing trance he could manage, not try to report to a master with a nasty habit of blaming the messenger for the message. “How many others did we lose?”
Colonel Garyad sounded shaken for the first time since Reginald had known him. “We lost most of the Garstang Army, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “Apart from you, only five of the sorcerers survived the fall, along with forty soldiers – and myself, of course. The assassin has vanished completely.”
“Of course,” Reginald growled. His head was spitting venom at him. He just wanted to lie down and die, not deal with a growing diplomatic disaster. Todtsteltzer, if he was still alive, would materialise sooner or later. Until he did, Reginald wasn’t going to pretend that he missed him. “And our fugitives?”
“No trace, sir,” Colonel Garyad reported. He sounded like a man trying to put the best possible slant on a disaster. “They might be dead.”
“We can hope,” Reginald said. He looked around at the dead bodies, already freezing in the cold. If he tried to lead the survivors back up the mountain, he'd have a mutiny on his hands. “We can only hope.”
He shook his head. Herod was definitely not going to be pleased.
Chapter Thirty
“Is he dead then?”
Herod looked up as two guards escorted the Lady Asma into his private quarters, the quarters he had taken from the late Emperor. Her face was set against bad news, but then, it always had been. Her appearance, constantly changing as a result of various cosmetic spells, had taken on a severe aspect, with her dark red hair pulled up in a bun. Her dark eyes glittered with icy determination, the same determination that had led her – or so rumour claimed – to murder her parents and take the Lordship of Yolanda for her own.
“It would certainly appear that way,” Herod said, studying the message capsule again. It had been carried to the Golden Palace by a falcon that had been enhanced and then domesticated by magic, giving the bird an unerring sense of direction and a flight range and endurance that outshone any natural creature. It was also unerringly loyal, the more so because – unlike a human – it didn't have the imagination to think of ways around the commands it had been given. “The last Master Reginald saw of the Emperor’s late unlamented brat was him being buried under thousands of tons of snow.”
He put down the capsule and grinned at her. “It would seem certain that Eric is dead and yet, it would be premature to gloat too soon,” he added. “The Emperor’s Bloodline has a remarkable talent for escaping certain death. The Gods alone know” – he looked piously up towards the heavens – “if he is truly dead or alive.”
Lady Asma frowned. There was bad blood between her and Eric, although Herod had no idea why they’d come into conflict. She was a couple of years older than him, so it was unlikely they’d moved in the same circles, not when her parents had been trying to organise a good blood match for her. She would have been forced into marrying a commoner if her parents hadn't died, yet even as the Lady of Yolanda, she had come under considerable pressure from her junior relatives. The bloodline had to be strengthened before it ran too weak.
“I was under the impression that you wanted to see the body,” she said, tartly. “Is there no chance that it can be recovered?”
“Master Reginald was fairly sure that such efforts would fail,” Herod explained. In truth, he wasn't too displeased with the result. The rumour that Eric was dead would help his cause far better than the certain knowledge that Eric was dead, or the Prince somehow cheating death and escaping his grip. “The guards and sorcerers were blown right down the mountainside and almost back to where they started. By the time they reached the place where the Prince was – if they could find it again – anything could have happened to the body.”
“Of course,” Lady Asma agreed. “Someone could have moved it under the mountain and left it there so that travelling minstrels could sing ballads of how the Prince sleeps under the mountain until the time when his land needs him, whereupon he will awaken from enchanted slumber and come forth to save the Empire.”
Herod smiled. “Why not?” He asked. “It does us no harm if people believe that Eric is out of the picture permanently, does it?”
“No,” Lady Asma agreed, reluctantly. She came forward and sat on the chair facing Herod, artfully draping herself over the chair so that he got a sharp look at her cleavage. Herod wondered – not that it mattered any longer – if the real reason she disliked Eric was that the Prince had turned her down. Eric had never been one for the ladies, even though he'd been a royal prince and had had ladies throwing themselves at him. “I assume you didn't summon me here so that we could gloat together?”
Herod shook his head, motioning for a maid to pour them both glasses of warm brandy. “I summoned old Chancellor Rakashi back from the Academy four days ago to inform him that the Emperor was dead – long live the Emperor – and that his services were no longer required,” he explained. “I believe that leaving him in place risked a...conflict of interest?”
They shared a droll smile. The Chancellor was appointed directly by the Emperor, but it was hardly a post that could be given as a reward for political services rendered. It required someone loyal, smart and very skilled at magic, for the Chancellor was one of the three magicians who ran the Academy. The former Chancellor couldn't be allowed to remain in his role – not with Eric’s status so uncertain – yet Herod was mildly surprised that he’d actually returned to the Golden Palace to receive his dismissal in person. He had to suspect that necromancy was involved somewhere – the zombies were pretty convincing proof – and he might have wondered if Herod meant to dispose of him. Herod had merely dismissed him and suggested a return to his own lands. There was
no profit in eliminating a close personal friend of the Grandmaster.
“You wouldn't want someone who wasn’t loyal to you personally in that position,” Lady Asma agreed dryly. “Who do you intend to put in his place?”
Herod looked into her hard eyes. She stared back at him, not particularly intimidated by his altered eyes. She had had a hard life – harder than most nobles – and it had left her unbothered by surface appearances. Unlike some of his allies, she had never raised any objection to necromancy. She would do whatever it took to maintain and increase her own power, yet for the moment she was completely dependent on him. In time, he was sure, she would attempt to stick a knife in his back, but for the moment she could be trusted, if only because of her own self-interest.
“You,” he said, flatly. “I need someone on the Council of Thirteen that I can trust.”
Lady Asma considered it briefly. “Me,” she repeated. “Do you not think that the Grandmaster is going to wonder why you chose me?”
“You’re a Master Magician and you have a direct link to me,” Herod said, flatly. He chuckled darkly. “The post has never needed any requirements beyond” – he clinked his glass against hers – “being a drinking buddy of the Emperor. You qualify as thoroughly as anyone else; no one can question your linage and you have a maturity that not all of the possible candidates can match.”
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